Derek Kehler

Yesterday Apple released the new models of the MacBook and the MacBook Pro.

It’s not nearly as exciting as the release of the MacBook Air about a month ago, but exciting none-the-less

“The MacBook Pro features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors (running at up to 2.6GHz with 6MB of shared L2 cache), larger hard drives (up to 300GB), and 2GB of memory standard in most models. They also include the latest NVIDIA graphics processors — with up to 512MB of video memory — and an innovative Multi-Touch trackpad, first introduced in MacBook Air.”

“The three new models of the MacBook feature faster processors and hard drives: sleek white 2.1 GHz and 2.4 GHz models with 120GB or 160GB 5400 rpm hard drives and a stunning black 2.4 GHz model with a massive 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive. The 2.4 GHz MacBook ships with 2GB of memory standard, expandable up to 4GB across the line.”

“Available immediately, the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models start at just $1,099 and $1,999, respectively.”

If you’re looking for a MacBook or MacBook Pro, now is a good time to get one. The new models come with leopard, and they’re a lot faster than previous models. With this being the 3rd generation of the intel macs, I’m expecting them to be a bit more reliable.

One of the biggest problems that I’ve had with my MacBook Pro is overheating, hopefully that’s been fixed in this version.

As I’m sure a lot of you know, Firefox 3 Beta is available for download. I’ve been using it for about two months now, and so far, I’ve extremely happy with it.

Firefox 2 was becoming a massive pain in the ass. It would crash on me at least 2 times per day, and it rendered anything with javascript extremely slowly. Needless to say, using Gmail was a “bad user experience”. Since using Firefox 3, It renders javascript better than Firefox2, and I have only had it crash on me 3 times (it’s only happened while I was closing the application).

The only downside to using Firefox 3 Beta has been the fact that I haven’t been able to use most of my Firefox2 extensions that I have come to rely on so heavily (ie. the developer toolbar)

Well… THERE’S A SOLUTION!!!

The boys at Lifehacker posted a blog post called, “Make Your Extensions Work with the Firefox 3 Beta“.

I admit, it’s definitely a bit sketchy, and I wouldn’t recommend it for the average user… but I’m guessing that if you’re using the latest beta version, you’re not a newby anyway, so give it a try.

I did it, and it works perfectly. I am using the developer toolbar right now; I couldn’t use it before the hack.

Try it and let me know how it goes!

My friend Greg Bell has been silently working on a project called ScrnShots for the past 3 or so months. It is an online application for designers to store, share, and organize their screenshots.

The need came out of a massive amount of screenshots that Greg had collected over the years. He had been organizing them using iPhoto (which I would consider a nightmare), but realized that others could greatly benefit from his massive library. At one point he tried using flickr to share them, but it was just weird because most of his contacts (ie. friends and family) didn’t care about screenshots of websites that meant nothing to them.

Greg, being the innovative person that he is, decided to create his own online community for sharing screenshots.

Currently, ScrnShots is in beta, but that is about to change within a month. And along with the launch of ScrnShots, Greg is releasing a few desktop integration tools. Right now, they will be mostly for use on Mac, but with a public API and a few nerds, that will hopefully be short-lived.

I have agreed to help Greg in whatever way that I can, and so I am going to be blogging/evangelizing ScrnShots like crazy in the next little while.

If you would like to help us create some buzz around this thing, let us know… or just blog, twitter, utter… or talk about it!

I have convinced my wife to start blogging.

She is a window display stylist for Le Chateau. She works on a team of 5 that do window display for all the Le Chateaus in the lower mainland. She has a formal education in fashion merchandising, and has a real knack for style.

Her blog is called Black is the new Black. It’s about fashion and lifestyle, and random fashion tips/gossip.

There’s really no good fashion blogs in Vancouver, so I think that there’s a real need for this, and I think it’ll be really good for the local fashion community. If you have any brilliant ideas for her, I’m sure she’d love to hear them.

Sorry for the default wordpress template.

I’m in the process of re-designing my site right now… check back in a few days for the new design.

Facebook is starting to annoy me. Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook, and I spend a lot of time on it. When I compare it to other social networking sites, it’s still in first place by miles. However, Facebook applications are getting out of hand.

I’m not saying that I haven’t installed any applications on my Facebook account, and I definitely don’t think that they are ALL annoying. he only Facebook application that I actually use regularly is the twitter plugin. When I twitter, this application automatically updates my Facebook status to whatever I twittered. Simple and brilliant.

Anyway, I have decided to see how many “other requests” I can gather, just for the hell of it.

For those of you who don’t enjoy these “other requests”, check out this video:

How to Block Facebook Applications

By the way… who the hell wastes hours of their life building an application called “Human Pets”???